Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain

Interesting jazz interpretations of Rodrigo and de Falla and then some Spanish folk music.

MF DOOM - Mm..Food

Love the variety of samples on this one, almost as good as the actual music itself.

The Rolling Stones - Live by the Sword

Best tune on the new album - just full of verve and life, a punchy anthem.

beautiful album. several outtakes included on the Miles Davis & Gil Evans - The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings.

also, this is a nice blog with someone going through his live recordings https://theheatwarps.com/

Thanks, ZenoMarx, I have yet to venture into any of his live stuff. I have been eyeballing Live at the Plugged Nickel.

Peter Gabriel – the songs of "I/O"

Unimaginative collection of ballads that cite Gabriel's old songs ("Road to Joy" = "Kiss that Frog") and Phil Collins ("Olive Tree" = something from "…But Seriously" or "Dance into the Light") and really lack surprises. I really like "Playing for Time" which is equal parts Gabriel's "Washing of the Water", Gabriel's "Father, Son" and some melodramatic score from the 50s but apart from that… sorry, this is going to be his worst studio album by a mile (release date: Friday, but you can listen to the individual tracks on his Youtube channel).

if I remember correctly, in that Plugged Nickel deal, like he/they often did, it is played at triple time. They play the songs at such a quick tempo that they're almost unrecognizable. I personally don't like tracks like "So What" and "Walkin'" played like that, but eh...

Albert Mangelsdorff - The Wide Point

Insane trombone jazz!

Anthony Braxton - New York, Fall 1974

I think this is his best and most accessible.

M.I.A. - I Love You cassette

Power electronics in the morning

John Zorn - Filmworks XVI: Workingman's Death

Great soundtrack album to a great documentary.

Yuja Wang - The American Project

This comes off as jazzy. Very nice. Modern pieces written for Wang by Thomas and Abrams backed by Louisville Orchestra.

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians

This version was done by Colin Currie and Synergy Vocals. I have enjoyed all the Steve Reich music that Colin Currie has recorded.

Confusion Field – Disconnection Complete (2021)
Confusion Field – Future Impact of Past Diversions (2023)

Fantastic proggy power pop with prominent bright-sounding wave keyboards and guitars in the vein of Lifeson and Gilmour led by multi-instrumentalist and singer Tomi Kankainen. The style is the same as Rush's on "Grace under Pressure", the songwriting is not; that's more modern and not derivative at all (although some compare the band to Riverside… Maybe, don't know Riverside too well). Great stuff. "Future Impact of Past Diversions" is one of the pleasant non-metal surprises this year.

Avkrvst – The Approbation
The Anchoret – It all Began with Loneliness

Two prog rock / metal hybrids from '23. The metal aspect in Avkrvst consists of metallic Porcupine Tree and Opeth while the metal aspect in The Anchoret is a bit like Voivod's "The Wake". Both are excellent in all aspects: production, songwriting, performance.

Johnny Cash - Dark as the Dungeon (At Folsom Prison)

An underrated track from this fantastic live album. Cash's deep voice fits it perfectly.

Swans. Just finished the "Filth" LP, currently listening to the "Greed" LP. Angry grim music that fits the day perfectly.

Nirvana - Come as You Are

This was a really easy buy. Great memorable tunes.

Bad Religion - Recipe for Hate (song)

Short and to the point, just like it should be. Probably a top 5 BR song for me.

The Vandals - A Gun for Christmas

Well, I mean... it's that time of year, folks.


That song and the album it's the title track for are both great.

Jimmy Page & the Black Crowes - "Live At Jones Beach, 2000"

Jimmy really seemed to be revitalized during his sting touring with the Crowes. The Zep classics sound incredible here, as the multiple guitars really bring Jimmy's "guitar army" concept to fruition in a live setting. Such a shame they didn't record any original material.

Paramore - Ain't It Fun

My wife is a huge fan of Paramore so I pretty much have all of their songs stuck in my head.

Gotta say, I really enjoy Haley's vocal hooks here. The band as a whole have went in a more pop rock oriented direction with recent albums and they do it well.

M-Opus – 1975 Triptych (dedicated to 1975)
M-Opus – Origins (dedicated to 1978)
M-Opus – At the Mercy of Manannán (dedicated to 1972)

Contemporary prog rock from Ireland. Each album intends to recreate the music written in a particular year in prog history. Whether those reformulations are accurate is debatable and beside the point. The question is: Is the music any good? Oh, yes!

The debut and the new one are worthwhile efforts but "Origins" takes the cake. It's a sci-fi audio play and that means: lots of dialogue snippets that will put you off if… you find dialogue snippets off-putting. If you hate albums brimful of talking, move one, there's nothing to hear here, but then you're missing out on some excellent voice actors.

"Miller:
'Seven years. You thought you could surprise me there, didn't ya? But I'm unsurprisable.'

Violet:
‘Yeah, well when you’re done being unsurprisable, come over and talk to me – I’m sitting just 20 feet behind you.'”
https://m-opus.bandcamp.com/track/cant-blame-me

As for the music: there's (almost) everything the year 1978 had to offer – from prog, through pop and soft rock, to punk and the first puddles of new wave. One of the best prog albums I've come across in years. It's more than two hours of entertainment without a single boring minute.

By the way: there's plenty of pleasant singing since the vocalist sounds like Bono's lower register and Jim Morrison's soft voice, respectively. By the way (part II): The drumming style is so very 70s-ish that I catch myself wondering if that drum fill right there is a young Simon Phillips backing some forgotten jazz rock combo.

The Vomit Arsonist - 'There Is No Future I Want To Be A Part Of' LP. A very good release from one of my favorite death industrial projects.

Nirvana - 'Bleach' CD. Been getting some winter weather today and this is a winter album for me.

Death Cab for Cutie - The New Year

Let's ring in 2024 with crying and sadness. You know, just for fun!

Hope I am in the right thread here: I love music that is non-metal---I love Prince the most though..is a shame he passed on...was so very talented in my eyes

I've never heard of this band but your description has absolutely piqued my interest! Will definitely check them out.

Sleater-Kinney - new singles, then "All Hands on the Bad One" album

Great band. Standoffish, catchy, hard driving rock. One of the best at it. New stuff sounds quite striking in the mood difference from their normal stuff.

They're just a threepiece and pretty obscure. I only stumbled across them around Christmas. Maybe you'll report back. Would like to know what you think.

Now playing: The Midnight – Red, White and Bruised: The Midnight Live

Synthwave from L.A. and New York. If you're familiar with the genre, you know what to expect: the sort of 80s pop rock that could appear on the soundtrack to Rocky or Miami Vice. This particular band gives me more 80s vibes than most of today's AOR combos combined, and it's just hook after hook and hit after hit wrapped up in a convincing live atmosphere. Sure, the songs are all rather similar but I'm ok with that if the songs are this good and this nightly and melancholic.

New Model Army - From Here

These last two albums of theirs are growing on me... understated, with less of the big driving choruses, but they're so well written.

Mozart/Jones Violin Sonatas Fragment Completions

Timothy Jones finished up a few of Mozart's unfinished sonatas and it sounds quite good. Rachel Podger is a great violinist.

I've heard nothing but good things about their last albums. I wish there was more out there about this band, but maybe I haven't looked in the right places? From what little I know, I like them a lot. I'd even like to know about the readily known 80's album cover for The Ghost of Cain. It's a small, inconsequential thing, but being on EMI, the popularity of The Cult, and leather jackets everywhere, was it a label decision or was there more to it? The band might not be as known as Bauhaus or The Smiths, but everyone recognizes that cover. And the Crass lot picketing their shows in the 80s for signing to a major label? I sense they've always been a sharp, working class group that kept their heads down and just kept doing their thing. No pretentious ideas or hopes of fame or infamy. Not interested in getting into the muck with other bands and legacy. Their story could be so very simple, or there could be so much more. The interview in Negative Insight from a couple years ago leads me to believe it is the former, but I'd still like to know.

I just so happened to be going through a bunch of 80s stuff, so I listened to the 1987 s/t MLP a couple days ago. I'd liked everything I'd heard from NMA until "Chinese Whispers". It's such a basic, annoying track.

My impression from interviews and the documentary about them on Youtube is just that they do their own thing. Like you said, a strong working class group. The whole sound and everything is just about a perfect band for me - the evocative moody vocals, strong rock riffs, excellent literary lyrics, just everything. They seem to sort of exist out of time, in that they were from the 80s but don't sound like any big trend from then. And they never changed their style drastically all through the years, just focused on different elements. Sometimes faster and harder, more recently a slower, moodier sound that borrows more from folk than any goth thing. Just plowing on through the years, not really anything but making good songs for the sake of it. Bastion of integrity.

Colosseum II - "Strange New Flesh"
Amazing mis-70s fusion featuring Gary Moore, Don Airey, Neil Murray, among others. The instrumentation here is unparalleled.
And it never gets boring.

I might have to look into this

Zeal and Ardor - s/t

Less catchy than Stranger Fruit, and he packs in more disparate influences on here, but I think this is actually really good. I seemed to see some confusion over it when it came out.

Alice Cooper - Killer

A classic hard rock album by the king of shock rock himself.

Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Ferocious and aggressive yet also politically and socially conscious. Jello Biafra also has one of the most distinct vocal styles in all of punk rock, one of the best hardcore punk albums of all time.

The 4 Skins-The Good, The Bad and The 4 Skins CD.
Oi!

I'm not really an Oi! person, but The 4 Skins are awesome.

Boygenius - The Record

These songs are like a blanket against the cold. The album sounds warm and truly intimate, good to have in mid-January.

Radiohead - Kid A
Sleater Kinney - All Hands on the Bad One

Kid A is such a strange big swing from this band. You could tell they were doing stuff on OK Computer but this one was totally gonzo and crazier in a lot of ways. Though the prior two had better songs.

Sleater Kinney is so good... this one, I never gave as much time, but it's full of killer punchy pop punk/rock tunes.